Don’t Be Remembered As The Prime Minister Who Let Children Drown

I read the comments on a local Facebook page today with increasing shame that I live somewhere with such little compassion for other humans.

Just proof that anything you put on the Internet, stays there (I’ve given the OP some anonymity).

Then after people arguing for humanity etc. This.

No matter which bits of me tried to detach themselves from my body today (Toes! Wtf? Stay in my foot!), I do get to end my day gazing out of this window in a room that is warm, in a house where my children are safe, in a town that isn’t under seige, in a country where I don’t risk being killed, raped or tortured just because of my religion or lack thereof.

And yet we are faced with hundreds of people fleeing just that. Their homes have been destroyed, their family members killed or worse. And those who live securely in our warm houses in this green and pleasant land feel it their given right to spew bile against them just because they are different.

I don’t claim to know an awful lot about Islam. I do know that when I was in the middle east, those men I did meet who were both Muslim & Christian were far more respectful of me than a great number of men I’ve encountered here. Over here, I’ve been leered at, groped, and had appalling things yelled out of white vans since my early teens. (Perks of getting older & more decrepit – less groping!). I also know that up until fairly recently, Catholic women were required to cover their hair at least in church. Not many people seen snatch the scarves being handed out to women who visit cathedrals where you are required to dress modestly.

I don’t have the spoons to go picking fights with these people, but reading constant comments fuelled by fear of difference just makes me annoyed about having to share oxygen with them.

So, on a day when I finally pressed the go button on getting the wheels, I’m counting my blessings. I’d rather hang about like a floppy brain in a jar than have my home and family destroyed.

Here I am, reading this post and cheering you on, fist-pumping and everything. And then I wanted to crawl under a rock when I came to that last meme…because Wesboro Baptist Church is just an hour down the road from us, in the town where I grew up. I wasn’t aware that our local shame had reached the ears of friends across the Atlantic. Ugh.